IT would be a good idea for the chief executive officer of PIA, Air Marshal Arshad Mahmood Malik, to refrain from boasting about the revenues or ‘operating profit’ that the national carrier is running these days until the company has filed its annual and quarterly results as it is required to do under the law. PIA is a listed company and its shares are publicly traded. It makes for a sorry sight to see the head of a listed company paint the financial health of his company in glowing colours when he has not been able to report financial results for almost two years. PIA last filed its annual results in August of 2019, and those were for the calendar year 2017. Even this came after the company had to be placed on the defaulters segment by the stock exchange, the frontline regulator. By law, these results are supposed to be filed within 120 days of the end of the year. Clearly, PIA is deep in default with regard to this elementary obligation of all listed companies.

No financial results since 2017 means six quarterly filings have been missed, four in 2018 and two in 2019. The logic for this delay is unconvincing. We are told that the company’s accounts people are still learning the ropes of the new software that is supposed to handle company finances. This cannot be seen as a valid reason to keep stockholders in the dark about the financial health of the company they own, and is no excuse to violate the law and fail to file these results on time. New to corporate ways, the CEO has still to learn some elementary lesson, and somebody needs to point out that shouting the ‘good news’ from the rooftops does not impress corporate circles. Before coming up with any numbers for revenue or profits in public gatherings, PIA should focus on delivering on its responsibility to its shareholders and furnish a complete and audited picture of the company’s balance sheet and cash-flow statements down to the latest quarter. At the moment, it seems that the CEO himself does not have a very clear picture of the finances of his organisation. This is hardly surprising given that the national carrier is still working on finalising the 2018 numbers. It is for this reason that he should not expect others to believe in the numbers that are being given verbally.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2019